Play ball! Blue Jays broadcaster Dan Shulman joins us for Opening Day chat

The Toronto Blue Jays came oh so close to capturing a World Series title last season — uniting fans from coast to coast in the process.

Can they finish the job this year? Does the latest version of the Jays have what it takes to go on another magical run? The journey begins Friday with an Opening Day match-up against the Oakland Athletics.

Our guest on tonight’s episode of Village Media’s Closer Look podcast is a person who knows this team as well as anyone: Dan Shulman, the Sportsnet broadcaster who calls every pitch.

Play ball!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The only moment where I in my head thought, this is it. It's happening right here was when that ball was in the air. I thought he hit it well enough to get it off the wall. And I don't know what I was saying while the ball was in the air, but inside my head, I'm thinking, you better figure out something fast, buddy, because it's going to be over in about a second.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

So back on closer look with Michael Friscolanti, our editor-in-chief here at Village Media. Can you smell it? Baseball is in the air. It's in the air.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

It's in the air, brother. Started last night on Netflix of all.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

It's like hockey on Prime, baseball on Netflix. I didn't even know that that was going on. Like baseball, as far as I remember, I'm obviously a huge fan. Opening day was opening day. It was like a religious day. Every game was on the same day. So now the Yankees opened last night on Netflix. Some teams open tonight, including my Tigers. Yes. And then the Jays open Friday night. Yeah. So I don't know, I didn't look at the full schedule, but it's kind of like an opening week vibe. Yeah. But it's a great March is the best. We talked about this already. And and opening day is for me the official signal of the summer to come. It's like it's happy opening day. Let's go. Let's watch some baseball. And before you know it, that snow will melt and we'll be uh loving it. Let's hope. How are your tigers looking? They look pretty good. You know, they well, I mean, it's a clean slate. They always look good, right? But they do look at it. But they do look they do look good. I'm I I feel good, you know, knock on wood, but it's all it's all the injuries. And thank thank God for sports, Scott, because uh, you know, I say it all the time. There's there's so much negativity, there's so much negative things going on in the world, so much worry, so much concern. And uh I don't know, sports for so many people is that thing that kind of can take you away for a little while. It's a nice bit of escape. Hopefully, there won't be too many gambling ads, and as we talked about the other night, there won't be too many uh what the odds are of this guy getting a hit. But I'll tell you, the odds of uh Pajas making that catch in game seven of the World Series knocking over Kiki Hernandez I would have loved it. That to me was the best catch of the year. And it happened. If that catch was happened in May, it would have been the catch year. He pushes his teammate over. Get out of the way. Jumps makes an unbelievable catch, but he makes that catch in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the world series like a movie. Yeah, robs Ernie Clemente of a hit, and that was the difference between the Jays not winning the World Series and winning the World Series. We're gonna talk that about that saying a whole lot more.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yes, with uh the one and only Dan Schulman. With the entire country watching, the Toronto Blue Jays were just two outs away last fall from capturing their third World Series, calling it a magical October run, doesn't quite do it justice. Every pitch had people from coast to coast on the edge of their seats. Sadly, it didn't go the Jays' way thanks to an unbelievable catch by a Dodgers outfielder. But now it's a new season, a clean slate, and the Jays are hoping to get back to the World Series again. Joining us tonight for a pre-opening day chat is a very special guest, Dan Schulman, the voice of the Blue Jays on Sportsnet. Uh Dan, we're thrilled you're here. Thanks for this. Uh, welcome to Closer Look. Thank you. Good to be with you guys. All right, uh, Dan, lots of uh Blue Jays questions uh for you tonight, but I want to be honest the real reason we've asked you to come on the show tonight is just to read the phone book for our listeners. Uh are you okay with that? I mean your voice is one of a kind of I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

I think that might get a little monotonous pretty quickly, but uh no, I I appreciate that. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

In fact, uh your career started uh in radio, I think, at CKBB and Barry.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Correct. Yeah, 1990. I was uh about six, eight months out of school from Western and got a job at CKBB Barry, CKCB Collingwood, and did a little bit of everything, whatever they wanted uh me to do. I covered elections, covered the courts, I got coffee for people, uh, eventually got into a little bit of newscasting and kind of worked my way up the ladder there. But uh news, traffic, weather, sports, the pet patrol, uh, which was the pet lost and found, like whatever they needed, I was happy to do.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

That's what I love about your story. It's it's kind of like all of ours. You know, we start with nothing. We start from the beginning, we work our way up, and then we make our way. Do you still pinch yourself sometimes at where you are today from where you were back then? All the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

All the time. Uh I mean, I was a math major. I'm not even supposed to be doing this. Uh, and even when I tried to do this, my my goal, uh, I started in Barrie and loved it there and learned a ton, but I'm a Toronto guy and just kind of wanted to see if I could get back to Toronto uh to live in the city that I was born and raised in. Never really thought about play-by-play, never thought about television, never thought about ESPN or doing anything in the United States or uh or anything like that. So yeah, I uh I probably pitched myself more than most people do.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

You know, in hindsight, we screwed this up. If we knew we knew Dan was coming, we should have had a contest where we asked readers just give us their names and you could have spent a couple minutes just saying hello to everybody. They they they they would have loved that. They would have loved that.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

All right, let's get to uh the baseball questions. Uh Dan, like we said off the top, uh an unbelievable run uh last year, uh, as it is with baseball. So much had to go so right for the Jays to get to where they did. During the season, when did it when did it click for you that this team was something special?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

I would say it was right around the time they played the Yankees, that four-game series over Canada Day. People may forget the Blue Jays weren't playing great the first two months. I believe they were 26 and 28 at one point. Bo Bachette hit a home run to win a game in Texas. It had been a bad road trip. They'd gotten swept in Tampa Bay, could barely score runs in Texas. They came home, played the A's, started scoring a lot of runs. And I remember whether it was Buck Martinez or Joe Sittle, series after series, like I think they played St. Louis and then Cleveland, Minnesota. I may have the order not quite right. But I, you know, we kept looking at each other and saying, hmm, they're pretty good. Like, is this real? Is this sustainable? And then when the Yankees came to town at the end of June, the Yankees were three games up on the Blue Jays, four-game series, including Canada Day, which as you guys know is always festive. And the Blue Jays swept him. George Springer hit a huge grand slam on Canada Day, which I think was the second day of the four-game series. The Blue Jays swept it, took over the lead in the East, and then until a little bit of a swoon in September, we're basically the best team in baseball for about two and a half months. So I would say it was around the time of that Canada Day series.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

That's great. Did you know, was there a time when you spoke to a player or someone on the team, a coach, a man the manager, maybe, where they felt it too?

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Oh, yeah, they felt it a lot. They might have felt it even earlier. Like it was going to click. It just hadn't started yet. You know, they they had a new, uh, two new hitting coaches, in fact, including the lead hitting coach, David Popkins. And maybe it took a little bit of time for the different messaging or different philosophy to really sink in. And once it sunk in over that two and a half month stretch, they were the best offensive team in baseball. And I think finished fourth in the majors in runs scored uh over the entirety of the season last year. So I think it just took a little bit of time for things to click. And it's not like everything went perfectly. They had injuries, they had to call in a lot of guys from the minors, but then you know, you started to see week after week, oh, so this is Nathan Lucas and this is Ernie Clement. And look at the year Alejandro Kirk is having right now. Bo Bichette might drive at 100 runs and so on, you know, uh Braden Fisher and Mason Flewhardy coming up from the minor leagues and doing what they were doing. So I think the key for them really was it's not that everything went perfectly, it's that when they did spring a leak, they had a guy who could patch it, and they did that over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Dan, we all uh followed along watching the games uh on SportsNet. But can you tell us a story that maybe we didn't see on TV that really speaks to the kind of uh team that they were?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Wow, that's a good question. I mean, I will tell you, and I know some people will go, now he's just saying this. Without question, the closest group uh that I've ever been around, any team. Um you know, whether it was Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Kevin Gossman, or whether it was Miles Straw, Braden Fisher, Tyler Heineman, uh, though anybody on the team, they all liked each other. Like sometimes I'd walk into the clubhouse or get on the bus uh traveling with the team on the road, or look in the dugout during batting practice, and I'd say, I've never seen those two guys talk before. And they were talking like they were brothers, like they were best friends. And it just went on and on and on. And I give um the front office and John Schneider and the coaches and the veteran players of the Blue Jays a tremendous amount of credit for creating that kind of culture, that kind of um that kind of environment. I'll tell you one very quick story. Somebody got traded over to the Blue Jays. I can't remember who it was last year. They made a few trades. And I went up to George Springer the next day and I said, uh, I said, Do you go out of your way, George? Do you make a point of welcoming a new guy to the team, whether you've known him before or you haven't? And he goes, absolutely. He goes, that's my job. And that's not everybody does that. Not everybody recognizes the value in that and that it's part of their job. But I think the Springers and Gaussmans, Chris Bassett from last year as well, uh Guerrero and others, the leadership group on that team was really special. And I hope they can recreate it this year.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Aaron Powell That's a great story because you often hear that cliche, though, we're the closest team, we all love each other, but that's not always true. They sometimes they're just saying that. So I do appreciate that. You know, for the players, obviously, Dan, the regular season is very different than the playoffs. You know, the the stakes are higher, brighter lights, more pressure. Do you feel that the same as a broadcaster going from September baseball to October baseball?

SPEAKER_02 9:40

I wouldn't say more pressure, but everything else I would agree with. So um during my time doing baseball with ESPN, I had been very fortunate to do a lot of playoffs, 12 World Series on the radio. So I had I had done the World Series before, but I had never done the World Series on TV, and I had never done it for my hometown team. So those are two different things. And I would say the adrenaline was through the roof for all of us covering the games as well. Uh I don't know how the players did it. I was exhausted after, I mean, the 18 inning game was a whole other story, but um, I was exhausted but exhilarated all at the same time. Uh, you can imagine how many people I heard from, who maybe I hadn't heard from in years and years and years, who all of a sudden were Blue Jays fans. My sister before September of last year might never have watched a baseball game in her life, and I'm not exaggerating. And by October, I was getting texts at 2 p.m. saying who's pitching tonight and what time is first pitch. I can't wait. So I I mean, one of the things that always means a lot to us is how many fans this team has. We totally get the St. John's to Victoria and everything in-between aspect of this. We love it. The vast majority of us on our crew were Canadian, myself included. So it it resonates with us a great deal. So I would say it was just excitement and adrenaline. You know, can they beat the Yankees? And then game seven against Seattle, the home run by Springer. They lose game three to the Dodgers, then go win four and five in LA, come home up three to two. Unfortunately, couldn't finish it off. But yeah, every single day was unbelievably fun.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

That's crazy. So your sister never watched you once on ESPN Sunday night baseball?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

No, never. Like I remember a few years ago where she said, Danny, how many games do you do? And I said, Well, there's 162 in a season. And I hadn't even finished the sentence. And she like spit out 162. I thought they only played on weekends. And I said, No, they they don't only play on weekends. You're your brother's a little busier than you think he is.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

That's amazing. That's amazing. Uh Dan, I am a huge baseball fan. It's my favorite sport. I love the game. Could listen to anyone, obviously yourself included, love love the game. That moment in game seven, when they brought in the outfielder for defensive purposes and he makes that catch. I told I keep telling my son, that is unbelievable. That's even beyond movie where that they can put a guy in center field for defensive purposes. And he made probably the catch of the year. That catch was amazing in a regular season game. Can you put me back there? Were you ready to call Clement's walk-off? You must have thought that's going to be a hit.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, it's funny because they there were I can't remember the specifics, but there were a couple of at bats in game six where the Blue Jays could have walked it off if somebody had hit a home run. And then right before that Ernie Clemente bat that you're referring to, Dalton Varshow, could have walked it off, but hit the ground ball to second. So there were three or four other at-bats before that where potentially the next pitch could have ended the World Series with the Blue Jays victorious. But the only moment where I in my head thought this is it. It's happening right here was when that ball was in the air. I thought he hit it well enough to get it off the wall. And I don't know what I was saying while the ball was in the air, but inside my head, I'm thinking, you better figure out something fast, buddy, because it's going to be over in about a second. So, and then of course, Andy Pajes may uh runs over Kike Hernandez. I don't know if I've ever seen an outfielder run over a teammate like that. Never mind in games in game seven, ninth inning, World Series, all that. But you know, I give Paes all the credit in the world. And that's why sometimes I take exception with the Blue Jays folded, the Blue Jays choked. Like none of that is true. No. Um they played their tails off, they represented their organization, their city, their country incredibly well. They took a uh a historically good team to the ninth inning of game seven. Yeah, they were up 3-2 and they didn't win it, but I think sometimes people forget the other guys are trying too. And Yamamoto was incredible, went into like superhero mode. Yeah, and three Dodgers hit home runs. It's not just the pitchers who throw the pitch, the hitters have to hit them out too. So I thought it was two great teams in an absolutely magnificent, compelling World Series. But yeah, the moment that one of the moments that I'll remember the most was when that ball was in the air off the bat of Ernie Clement.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah. Uh Dan, I think you called uh that loss the ultimate heartbreak after getting that close and then falling short. How long does that linger for a team and even for a guy like you as the broadcaster?

SPEAKER_02 14:04

For a guy like me, not long. Honestly. And if if my wife walks into the room, she can uh she can uh bear this out. I would say the next, so that was Saturday. Uh Sunday, we did nothing. Like I think like a wave of exhaustion hit me on Sunday. I think we just hung out at home and walked the dog a few times. That's it. Um, and then I I left for basketball Wednesday. I only had three days until I was going into college basketball. So part of it was out of necessity, where I said, my brain and my body need Sunday off. Um, but I've got Kansas and North Carolina coming up in a few days, and I need to figure out who's on those teams. So uh because of that, I turned the page pretty quickly. And I think it's also, you know, what I just said in my previous answer about they gave everything they had. And I choose to look at it as an incredible season. American League Champions. I know they didn't get ultimately what they were so close to getting, but but I think the season should be celebrated. And probably by Monday or Tuesday, like three days after, that's where I was in the mindset that I'm in right now. Now, every now and again, something would pop up on social media on my feed that I would see, and it would be the IKF, did he get to home played in time, or Hoffman's pitch that was hit out. Like you can't, you know, you can't crawl into a cave. So I got reminders of it, but I pretty much felt two, three days later, like I feel now. For the players, um, I think they move past it pretty quickly as well. Players sometimes have the ability to turn the page much better than fans do, to be honest with you, because I think they're conditioned to do so. It's the life they lead. Um, the one guy I think of is Jeff Hoffman, who I feel terrible for because he was phenomenal in the playoffs until the ninth inning of game seven. Right. Before that, I think it's 11 innings, five hits, one run, 16 strikeouts. Yes. Uh, you know, he saved, uh he got the last three outs in game seven of the American League Championship Series. He was great. Uh so I hope, and and from everything I know, uh, from speaking with him and and reading other interviews that he's given, he has turned the page. He is ready to go. And you just hope it stays that way. Ninth inning, guys. Boy, the spotlight is bright, whether it's uh good or bad. And and uh I just hope he's been able to put it behind him, and I think he has been.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

All right. I want to talk about your partner, Buck Martinez. You and Buck spent uh many years uh in the booth beside each other, uh, starting a TSN uh in 1995, then again with SportsNet. Uh but uh this year is going to look a little bit different uh with Buck's retirement. Maybe if you could speak to that relationship between between you and Buck and of course the uh inaugural uh inductee to the new uh Jays Hall of Excellence.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah, I was one of the biggest breaks I've ever gotten in my career is that Buck Martinez was my partner, both at the beginning and then the last 10 years before he retired. So um, you know, as you as you guys know from watching him, he he's the best. He resonates with people, unlike just about any other announcer I've ever met, to be honest with you. He just people, you know, people get get him, and he gets people. And it's a it's a connection like everybody feels, you know, he's part of the family. So uh I'll tell you a quick story. This is back in 1995. I was a kid. I hadn't done any, I had done one inning of a spring training game on radio when I was down in Florida doing some pre- and post-game show in my talk show, and Tom Cheek turned around and said, Danny, you want to call an inning? And that's the only inning I had ever done in my life before the audition with Buck in 1995. Uh, I didn't get the job initially. They called me back about three months later and said, You're still interested. So I don't know what happened in the interim uh and who choice A, B, and C were, but I'm I'm happy that that it didn't wind up with them. And, you know, Buck and I started doing some spring training games. And after maybe our second game, we probably went out for dinner with our producer after the game. And he said to me, He goes, Danny, if if we can make this sound like two guys sitting at a bar having a beer, we're doing okay. And I say that in my head seconds before we go on air every single time. Just yeah, it's it's a baseball game. There's a lot of really serious stuff going on in the world. Everybody who's watching this game tonight has an option to be doing something else. So let's just talk baseball and see where it goes. Um, I don't, my face isn't buried in my notes. I don't have an agenda about what I want to get on the air. I want to watch the game and call it to the best of my ability and hopefully keep people informed and a little bit entertained.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

And uh I owe a lot of that to Buck. It's a great story. He always fascinates me because he did it all. He was a player, a manager, and he did play by play. Like he's I think he's the only person that ever came from that. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Uh to my knowledge, yeah. So he started off doing color when I was there with him, but then he became the manager. I went to ESPN. He came back some years later. I hadn't come back yet. And they asked him uh Pat Tabler was the what had been entrenched then as the as the color commentator, and they asked Buck if he wanted to do play by play, and he said sure. So he did play by play kind of until I came back a few years later. So yeah, player, manager, play by play, color. That's uh that's a pretty good uh that's a pretty good quartet. I don't know anybody else who's done all that.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's a great point. You did mention uh there's lots going on in the world, and that's the beautiful thing about baseball when I tune into a game, you know, it kind of makes you not think about the other things going on in the world. But the that World Series and that playoff run did happen at the time when the trade war just started. Lots of talk from the president about 51st state. How much did you hear that or feel that as the Jays made this run?

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Aaron Powell It was more earlier in the season. I remember the Blue Jays went to both the Mets and the Yankees earlier, and this is when the tariff stuff had started and they booed the national anthem. That's all gone. I don't rem it it probably happened a little bit during the the World Series. I don't remember, to be honest with you. But some of that is just sometimes, you know, it's the American national pastime of the United States, and some people, God bless them, will always be offended if a Canadian team, which is made up of American and Dominican and Venezuelan and Puerto Rican players, uh, will try to win the game from their team, which is made up of American and Dominican and Puerto Rican and Venezuelan players. So uh among others, obviously, and then the odd Canadian here and there. So yeah, it it it happens once in a while. I re I haven't thought about it much since, but I remember it being worse in April, to be honest with you, when the tariff stuff started. I think it died down, and maybe there was a little bit um in the World Series, but uh yeah, it's what can you do? Real life creeps into everything sometimes, and everything can be divisive and politicized. And uh at the end of the day, when the umpire points at the picture and says, play ball, uh, it's my job to call a game, and then uh I try to keep it to that.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Absolutely. This has been a great conversation. Just a couple more questions, Dan. We really appreciate it. You know, I know again, being a big baseball fan, a lot of people think, okay, the Jays, we're almost there. We'll just get back to the World Series and we'll do it again. But as you know, getting back to the World Series might be the hardest of all the pro sports to get back. Can you speak to that? It's not easy, is it?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

No, I I think baseball, just by the nature uh of the way it is as a sport, is more unpredictable than football, basketball, hockey. Um, you know, you can see a guy hit 310 with 28 homers, and the next year he hits 260 with 13 homers. That doesn't like guys in basketball don't go from 26 points a game to 13 points a game. They don't go from 45% from three to 29% from three. You know, you miss the ball by a quarter of an inch, and that turns a line drive into a pop-up. So I think the sport lends itself to more chaos for lack of a better term. And also you've got to win a lot, a lot of rounds, a lot of games now in the postseason. It really is uh uh a battle of attrition in October. Do you have enough arns to get through? So, you know, plus the well, here's another look at how narrow the margin was for the Dodgers over the Blue Jays. Look at how narrow the margin was for the Blue Jays over the Mariners. Now go back a previous series, and the Mariners, I think they were playing the Tigers in a best of five, and game five went. Yes, it did. And the Tigers had trouble beating the Guardians in the first round. Like the it was paper thin all the way through the American all the way through to the end of the World Series. So it's just the nature of the sport. The other thing is, you know, in hockey, you want McDavid on the ice on the power play. You put him on the ice. In basketball, you know, you want Wemby to be out there when it matters the most. You put him out there. Your quarterback is your quarterback in football. You don't control who's coming up next in baseball. They've got an order. And, you know, no one player in baseball can be as influential or instrumental in a team's success, in my mind, uh, as any one player in some of the other sports. And maybe I should walk that back because of what Yamamoto did last year, but that's like that's like once in a decade, once in a generation kind of stuff. So um, but it is going to be hard to get back. The division is always the best in baseball, and it's even better than it normally is this year. And and um I know the Blue Jays aren't taking anything for granted, nor should they.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah. So what do you say to fans you see, Dan? Are they going to get back to the playoffs?

SPEAKER_02 23:04

I say I think they've got a really good team, and I think they've got an outstanding chance to win the division, to compete for a division title, and once you get in, anything can happen. And that's how I honestly feel. Um, they could finish first with 96 wins, they could finish fourth with 90 wins. Um, you know, they they have to play these teams in their division more than the other. It's a tougher division. It's not a balanced schedule. It's less unbalanced than it used to be, but it is not a balanced schedule. Everything is tougher for the teams in the East. And you could have a really good year and still miss out on the playoffs this year because a wild card team in the central or west is fattening up on some of the weaker teams. So I think they're good enough to get to get by that. But um, you know, listen, we've seen really good teams uh have great years and then have, you know, win 20 fewer games the next year. So I don't think that's going to happen to them. I think they are good and deep and um, you know, well insulated against a lot of issues that could crop up, but you you never know with baseball.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Uh last one for you, Dan. Uh family's important to uh all of us, but you're certainly in a uh unique situation uh with your son Ben calling uh Jay's games on radio. How cool is that?

SPEAKER_02 24:13

It's very fun. Uh he's known since he was about 12 or 13, he wanted to get into the business. He knew when he was about 15 he wanted to go to Syracuse, got into Syracuse, did that uh during the COVID years too, so that kind of held him back a little bit. But I remember kind of in his junior year starting to listen to him, and I know I'm his dad, but I would say to my wife, he he's pretty good, right? Like I'm not uh I'm not just being dad here. Um and then he did the Cape Cod League, did uh the Padres A-ball team in the Midwest League, uh the Fort Wayne Tin Caps for a year, and then started doing stuff in Toronto. And it's great. What I'm what I'm most proud of is how um he handles himself. He's very respectful. Um he and and I I asked some of the veteran players, like guys I've known for a few years, quietly, like a month or so into the season, maybe this was two years ago, a month or so into the season, I said, How's he doing? And they were like, Don't worry, Daddy, he's doing okay. Like it's fine. Don't worry. And um, but I'm proud of him. I think he's doing great. Uh, quite frankly, I think he kicked my butt a few times in October last year. So with some of the calls, maybe it's being uh 30 some years younger than me, but he can he he can get up to 10 a little bit easier than I can get up to 10 sometimes. So, but I'm very proud of him, and um it it it is very cool. We probably exchange a hundred plus texts every day because we're living the same life, we're doing the same thing. So, did you see this article? Did you see this note? Uh, you know, that sort of thing. So, you know, as a dad, when one of your grown children wants, you know, still tolerates you being in their lives as much as I'm in his, it's really special. All right.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Uh 5:30, uh pregame show tomorrow night on SportsNet. Another season. Uh Dan, thanks for this uh and have a great season. Thanks, guys. Enjoyed it. I thought you were gonna reach through the camera when uh Dan brought up the Tigers.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

I know I didn't want to take the focus away from Dan. He's a busy guy, too, but man, that's that's stung. Just bringing back the memory of that 15-inning Tigers game for people who know. I'm a huge Tigers fan. And I still sting in for that. But it's opening day for our team tonight. That's right. Who are you playing? Uh San Diego Padres for four o'clock Eastern, actually. First pitch, Terek Scubel. Um, but you know what? I just talking to Dan is uh phenomenal broadcaster. I've watched I watched him for years on Sunday Night Baseball before he went back to becoming the Jays broadcaster. He's just such a pro, understands the game, and uh and what he said about baseball is so true. And he people our guests always say it better than I could ever say it because that's the thing about baseball. Your best player only hits once every nine times. You can't just put him in, you can't give the ball to your like you can in basketball to Michael Jordan all day. So your best batter hits once every nine times, and until last year when they brought in Yamamoto on zero days rest. You would never bring like they never bring Terek Scuble in when he pitched the day before. It's crazy. So I don't know what magical thing they had going on that day, like or if there's some doctor who'd x-rayed his arm and said, Yeah, there's something like that, like that could be career-ending. It's risky, right? And then these guys are worth tens of mil hundreds of millions of dollars. But uh great conversation. Uh, I wish the Jays the best uh so we can have another fun October and maybe we'll meet, maybe we'll meet in the uh in the playoffs this year.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

We did a f I remember being down here, you know, in the fall and watching games and chirping each other was good. Absolutely. Let's all right. Uh pregame show 5 30 uh tomorrow night on Sportsnet, first pitch at Rogers Center, just after 7 o'clock. Closer look at villagemedia.ca is how you can reach us for Zach Trunzo, executive producer of this evening's program, and Michael Friscladi, our editor in chief. I'm Scott Sexmith. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow night at 7, right here on Closer Look.